A. HVOROSTOV, S. NOVIKOV (Orel).

Polenovo. Dining room interior.

Table-lectern of the XVII century. Regional Museum of Totma.

A common piece of furniture in ancient times were benches. Their backs were made deaf or through - carpentry or turning. In the picture: a bench from the Vologda region.

In some benches, the back could be thrown from one end to the other. Such benches were called moving, and the back itself was called moving. In the picture: a bench from the Arkhangelsk region.

In ancient times, dining tables were made large, based on a large family. The edges of the table board and the edges of massive legs with carved intercepts were covered with carvings. In the pictures: dining tables with carvings. XVII century.

Common small tables for caskets were often decorated with solid carvings. Picture: a table with carvings from the village of Trigorskoye near Pskov. End of the 18th century.

Science and life // Illustrations

Woodworking is the original occupation of Russian craftsmen. In this industry, a lot of space has always been given to the manufacture of furniture. The carpenters who built the house in the north and northeast immediately prepared furniture for it - cut-in benches, built-in wardrobes. In other areas, “white-wood” furniture was made for peasants and poor townspeople: chairs, stools, benches, cabinets. Their surface was not covered with anything, hence the name. Pieces of white-wood furniture had carved backs, turned legs and other decorations.

Those who were richer ordered "gluing" - veneered furniture. Its frame was made of simple wood species, and the finish was made of expensive wood. Such furniture was made by master cabinetmakers who had special tools. Many of them were made by the masters themselves for personal use. The first place among such tools was occupied by various curly planers. When the mass industrial processing of wood began, they began to forget about these tools, and curly planers are now left in single copies from the old masters. It is possible that after a while they may completely disappear, turning into unnecessary trash, which they throw away without pity.

Now the industry produces planes, jointers and sherhebels, but before, in addition to these tools, the cabinetmaker had a lot of special figured planers and planes for various operations. Their names were still encountered in the literature of the twenties and thirties. The current, even encyclopedic, publications dispense with their mention.

Meanwhile, figured planers should not be forgotten, if only because the form and purpose of such tools have been worked out for centuries. And most importantly, they are still needed today, because along with mass production, many people want to make piece art products.

Now about the curly planes themselves, which are depicted in the drawings of the authors. Many of their names are of German origin. They also used planers made according to the type of English and French inventory.

A narrow planer with a flat, even edge of an iron knife was called a zenzubel or selector. With the help of a zenzubel, a quarter was selected - a narrow groove at a right angle on the edge of the workpiece, for example, in window frames, to deepen the glass.

In order for the groove to be of the same width during planing, a steel plaque with a barely protruding tip was fixed on the tool block. It guided the movement of the sampler along the boundaries of the quarter previously drawn by the thickness gauge and facilitated the first stitching and the entire sample. The quarters at the ends were chosen with an oblique zenzubel.

Falzgobel served to obtain a fold on the edge of a board or shield - a recess of the desired width and depth. The fold was performed, for example, on panels - panels for tightly fixing them in the door frame. Falzgobel is similar to zenzubel, only its block is wider. A guide bar was screwed to it from below with screws, which limited the width of the selected fold. A sharp knife - a cutter, fixed on the side, cut and planed the vertical planes of the folds to get a clean, smooth surface.

A tongue and groove, or groove, is a tool with two pads connected by screws. This made it possible to move the pads relative to each other. One block was a guide, the other served to secure replaceable narrow iron knives. With the help of a tongue and groove, a rectangular recess was chosen in the edge of the board - a tongue. On the edge of the other board, a ridge was obtained, which fit snugly into the prepared tongue. To obtain the crest, a federgubel was used - a planer with an iron knife. In the center of the knife there was an opening along the width of the future comb.

When it was necessary to get a dovetail comb, a tool called a grubber was used.

A decorative embossed belt of several grooves along the edges of the workpiece was made with a calving - a narrow planer, in which the cutting edge of the knife had a figured profile. This knife cut a relief groove along the edge of the product. Various forms of grooves were obtained due to the different profile of the cutting edge of the knife.

A kalevka with a wide figured iron knife was called a fillet. The tail of the knife was narrowed to make it easier. The upper part of the block was also narrowed so that the tool was light and easy to use. Often there were fillets with two narrow knives. They were placed so that one knife was slightly ahead of the other, and together they covered the entire width of the block. With such a tool, a wide relief decorative strip was made along the edge of the workpiece.

The convex semicircular parts were planed with a stave - a planer with a concave block and with a knife that had a concave blade. They also used a planer - a half-shtap, with a slightly concave block.

To obtain a deepened groove, a planer with a block convex in cross section was used, and the knife was sharpened in the same convex way. This tool was called a grooved filler.

Cabinetmakers still used two types of planers with a curved block. They were called hunchbacks. The sole of the block for processing concave surfaces was convex and, conversely, concave for convex parts.

To achieve roughness during gluing, a small plane was used - a cynubel. His knife was covered with longitudinal grooves, and therefore the edge looked like a saw with fine teeth.

With the help of these tools, artistic products were created at home, which can now be seen in museums.

information bureau

In 1638, according to the "Russian list of the city of Moscow", 2367 artisans worked in the capital, 200 of them processed wood. Among them were carpenters, coopers, Berdyaniks, tar, betrothed, sawyers, cart workers, carpenters, handbrake, turners.

During 1893, 13,000 carts delivered timber to Moscow.

In 1913, 427 Moscow shops and offices sold handicrafts made of wood.

In 1965, about 2,300 organizations, or 0.7 percent of art craft divisions, were engaged in the artistic processing of wood in Russia. In 1975, more than 30,000 organizations, or 0.9 percent of art craft divisions, worked on wood.

Publications in the Traditions section

"Father Ocean, Icy Sea". Pomor traditions in fairy tales and epics

Pomors have long inhabited the coast of the White Sea. They were skilled shipbuilders and sailors and, according to legend, were the first to reach the polar archipelago of Svalbard. Their whole life is connected with the sea: crafts, traditions and folklore.

We read northern epics and fairy tales to find out how the Pomors lived and what they said about justice, fishing and their wives.

"I'll wash everything from the sea"

Vasily Perepletchikov. Pomors enter the port of Arkhangelsk. 2nd half of the 19th century

The boat with the people of Willem Barents passes along the Russian ship. Engraving from 1598

Mitrofan Beringov. Pomor fisherman with sea bass. Year unknown. Photo: goskatalog.ru

The life of the Pomors was built around sea crafts. During the voyages, they caught fish and seals, mined pearls. The old proverbs say: “Our field is the sea”, “And joy and sorrow - I will eat everything from the sea”, “We live by the sea, we feed on the sea, the sea is our nurse”. Maritime stories also appeared in ritual folklore - for example, traditional fairy tales and epics. They were told during hard monotonous work or on winter evenings while mending fishing nets.

“The North has played an outstanding role in Russian culture. He saved us from oblivion Russian epics, Russian ancient customs, Russian wooden architecture, Russian musical culture, Russian labor traditions.

Dmitry Likhachev, philologist and academician

Many fairy tales about sea trips began with a description of the scene - the coast: "That was a long time ago. Three brothers lived on the shores of the White Sea". The Pomors considered swimming a test, from which the worthy return home victorious, and those who gave in to the elements perish. But they were not talking about “drowned”, but “the sea took”. It was not accepted to condemn such “decisions”: the sea personified justice.

“He menacingly stretched out his bloody hands to the sea and shouted with a strong cry:
- Father Ocean, Icy Sea! Judge me and my brother even now!
Like thunder, the Ocean thundered in response to Goreslav. Wrath perpetrated in the sea. A gray-haired exorbitant wave soared over the boat, picked up Likhoslav and carried him into the abyss.

An excerpt from the Pomeranian legend "Anger" (Boris Shergin. "There were also Pomeranian legends")

According to legend, the owner of the sea - "Nikola - the god of the sea" - also loved fairy tales. Pomors often took an experienced storyteller on a campaign. The luck of the fishermen depended on him: if he manages to lull the owner, the fish will be left unattended and fall into the net. Therefore, the storyteller spoke in a singsong voice, softly and monotonously.

“For songs and fables, from the age of eighteen I had a name with a patronymic. They did not give any work in the field. Food from the kitchen, firewood from an ax - know, sing and speak ... In the evening, the people will gather, I say. The peasants are crowded, there is nowhere to hurry, there are no taverns. The evening is not enough - we will take the night ... Then one by one they will begin to fall asleep. I will ask: “Sleep, baptized?” - “We do not sleep, we live! Keep talking."

From fish to pearls - Pomeranian crafts

Nicholas Roerich. Pomeranians. Morning. 1906

Valentin Serov. Pomors. 1894

Clement Redko. Pomors spit out cod. 1925

The inhabitants of the White Sea called themselves "cod eaters": fish was the basis of their diet, and fishing- the main industry. In fairy tales, adventures often began with a trip to the tonya - that was the name of the place of seasonal fishing.

“We went to the sinking, swept this seine, and when they began to pull it to the shore, it turned out that the seine was full of fish. The brothers spent the whole day fumbling around, pulling fish out of the skein, and in the evening, tired, they say: Well, it's a miracle, this has never happened before. On the day they untied the net, on the second they untied it, but there were never so many fish!”

An excerpt from the Pomeranian fairy tale "Nikifor's Miracle"

In February, hired workers went to the tony. Four people “spun” on each ship, the main one was the feeder. He had to know the fishing grounds, be able to butcher and salt the fish. The feeder received a high salary and a significant part of the production.

Harp seals and walrus have long been harvested on the coast of the White Sea. For hunting Pomors united in an artel of 5–7 people or in a larger group, which was controlled by an ataman. In the Pomeranian tale, "animal catches" were a test - both physical and moral qualities.

“In the month of February, industrialists go to sea to hunt wild animals. Kirik dressed up with a twist. He says to his brother:
- Oleshenka, we have an oath to listen to each other: get ready for fishing!
Olesha did not utter a word, he quickly coped. The anchors were rolled out, the sails were opened ... The foremother of the sea fair wind was merciful to Kirik. Day and night - and Animal Island in the eyes. Ice island circle. On the ice floes there are seals. Dvinyan men made concession with the beast, taught to beat.

An excerpt from the Pomeranian legend "Love is stronger than death" (Boris Shergin. "Dvina Land")

Pomors constantly improved in shipbuilding. They were skilled sailors: they went fishing in Norway and Eastern Siberia. Pomors built kochi - light sailing ships for sailing in the northern seas. The special shape made them maneuverable, and the kochi almost never died in the ice. The skill of shipbuilders was a frequent motif of northern fairy tales, songs and epics.

... And everyone at the feast is drunk and cheerful,
And everyone at the feast began to brag.
Fishermen-Pomors with good craftsmanship:
What is in the mother in the quiet in the Dvinskaya lip,
In the rich in the wide Nizov land
Lowlands, fishing mouths
They make and equip ships - trading boats.

Boris Shergin, excerpt from the book "Dvina Land"

Industrial salt mining Pomeranians took up around the XII century. "Pomorka" from the coast of the White Sea was considered the cleanest and highest quality. The royal charter of 1546 stated: “Which de salt the Dvina carry from the Dvina, in that salt kardehi [crushed stone] and the admixture does not live at all”. Salt of the highest quality was obtained from underground "brine beds", which were not easy to find. If the hero of a Pomeranian fairy tale met a salt spring, this, as a rule, meant good luck and soon wealth.

“Whether it is close, far, low, high, and they see: the mountain is white, like grains. Approached - salt mountain. We went into the harbor and began to roll salt in barrels. Rolled up a full hatch.

An excerpt from the Pomeranian fairy tale "Salt"

pearl fishing began in the Pomeranian villages with the beginning of summer. Men dived into the sea for shells, while women and children collected them in baskets from drying up rivers. Pomors wove beads and “butterfly” earrings from pearls, decorated belts and headdresses with precious embroidery. They had a proverb: "A woman in a dress is a man who earns her money."

“- Well, Ivan, merchant's son, what do you need as a reward - gold or silver?
“I don’t need either gold or silver,” says Ivan. "Give me one bag of pearl sand."

An excerpt from the Pomeranian fairy tale "Pearl Sand"

Pomeranian "big"

Alexander Borisov. Spring polar night. 1897

Mitrofan Beringov. Pomors. Illustration. 1928

Arkhangelsk province. Pomeranian village. Postcard. 1912. Photo: goskatalog.ru

Mutual respect was valued in the family life of the Pomors. Spouses had almost equal rights. When the husband went on a campaign for a long time - to the Murmansk Strada, to the Kedovsky Way, to the Norwegian voyages - the wife became the head of the family. Pomors called such a hostess "big".

Often the wives themselves went to sea. Some women became feeders in the fisheries and led the men's brigades.

From a steep bank
The boat has departed
You tell dear
That she went fishing.

Pomeranian ditty

The woman was the main character of many Pomeranian legends. A faithful friend helped her husband, passed all the tests on a par with him, and sometimes even surpassed him in endurance, strength or courage.

Not a prince, not an ambassador, not a warrior -
A woman from Ryazan, an orphan,
Crossed forests and deserts
Climbing pushing mountains,
Fearlessly appeared in the Horde...
Take your brother and husband,
Take your sweet son with you.
Return to Rus' and brag
That she didn’t go to the Horde in vain.
Gay, Ryazan husbands and wives,
What are you standing, covered with longing?
Why are you looking at Avdoty's joy?
I release you all to Rus'.
Gay wife Avdotya Ryazanka!
Lead the whole Ryazan out of the crowd,
And be you campaign governor.

An excerpt from the Pomeranian legend "About Avdotya Ryazanochka"

Women on the coast of the White Sea were more independent than in other regions of pre-revolutionary Russia. One of the Pomeranian legends told about a woman who sailed alone to visit her husband. On a large seaworthy boat - karbas - Pomorka rounded the coast of the White Sea, went to the Barents and got to her husband.

Watch the fairy tale about the Pomors of the film studio "Soyuzmultfilm" (1987)

March 24th, 2017

If it happened to be born in the empire,
Better to live in a remote province by the sea
(I. A. Brodsky)

Pomorie in Russia is historically called the coast of the White Sea - the northern region, although long settled, but sparsely populated, once the former outskirts of the Russian state, and in its own way original. Pomorie also has its own historical core - the Pomeranian coast, that is, the southwestern coast, between the cities of Kem and Onega. Most of the Pomeranian coast is now part of Karelia. This time I will tell you about three ancient Pomeranian villages in the Belomorsky region - Sumsky Posad, Virma and Sukhoe.

The order of these three villages I named reflects the movement back to Belomorsk. That is, the closest to the city is Sukhoe (18 kilometers), then Virma (35 km), and already 50 kilometers to the east of the city is Sumsky Posad (in everyday life it is simply called Sumposad). We are with andrew_rewsr made a bike ride along the Pomeranian coast along a dirt road: in the morning we rode with bicycles by train from Belomorsk to Sumposad, and then rode back towards the city already on bicycles.

As already mentioned, there is a three-way railway junction in Belomorsk: to the east of the city there is a line to the Obozerskaya station, connecting the Murmansk highway with the Arkhangelsk one. It was from there, and in the same direction, that we drove to Sumposad. The Kem-Malenga train takes us there, and it takes 50 kilometers to Sumposad, or a little more than an hour. There are not many people on the morning train, and most of the passengers are railway workers.

2. Here is Sumy Posad. A fairly large station, which in 1994-2003 was the end point of electrification. There used to be a wooden train station here, but it burned down a couple of years ago. Quite a lot of passengers come out, and we unload with bicycles. The train left further - in two hours it will be at the Malenga station near the border with the Arkhangelsk region, after which it will go back to Kem.

And we sit on bicycles and go to the village, which is a little away from the station. Officially, there are two settlements here - the village of Sumsky Posad, and the village of the Sumposad railway station. At the same time, the station itself is called Sumsky Posad, and the station village is called Sumposad, officially. However, in fact, the entire Sumy Posad is perceived as one.

3. Sumposad is a village, by local standards, quite large (about seven hundred inhabitants, and a hundred years ago it was one and a half thousand), the center of a rural settlement. Plus, it has a rich history. For the first time the village is mentioned under the name WITH at ma in 1436 in the context of the founding of the Solovetsky Monastery. Here was the estate of the Novgorod posadnik Marfa Boretskaya, who gave the village into possession in 1450.

4. It is only 4 kilometers from here to the White Sea, but in the summer you can’t just go to it - the shores are swampy. The village is picturesquely stretched along the banks of the Suma River, which gave it its name. Solid Pomeranian huts, many of which are over a hundred years old, face the river with their facades. When viewed from the bridge, Sumposad reminded me of Karelian.

The river originates from Lake Sumozero, and here, almost immediately after the village, it flows into the sea. And the sea is the basis of local life. Around dense forests and swamps - rich in gifts of nature, but at the same time of little use for agriculture. The main trade of the Pomors is catching sea fish. They catch with nets - they usually go out to sea in the morning with the tide, and then in the evening, through high water, they return. And so they have been living here for centuries. I must say that Pushkin's "The Tale of the Fisherman and the Fish" most often pops up in memory in these parts.

5. However, you may not even guess that the sea is nearby if you do not know about it. Outside the village, only the forest is visible. But, however, a cool wind blows from the sea.

In the 16th century, Suma was already one of the largest and most prosperous villages on the Pomeranian coast (just like Soroka - present-day Belomorsk), being also the center of salt production - several breweries operated here. However, life was often turbulent - the region is borderline, and several times it was ravaged by the Swedes. In 1576, during the Livonian War, they burned Suma, before that they managed to make trouble in the "Kemskaya volost". And in 1583, a wooden Sumy jail was erected here, consisting of six towers - Gate, White, Mokhovaya, Nizovskaya, Rybnaya and Bridge. In 1613, the Swedes besieged it, but could not take it. In the 1680s, the prison was rebuilt, and a hundred years later it was abolished, began to deteriorate, and by the 20th century it had almost collapsed. The partially preserved Mokhovaya Tower was transferred in 1931 to the Kolomenskoye Museum in Moscow, where it still stands in a restored form.

6. On the way from the station to the village, the village school is visible:

After the abolition of the prison, the settlement became the village of Sumy. In 1806, it was transformed into a settlement as part of the Kemsky district of the Arkhangelsk province, receiving its modern name - Sumsky Posad.

8. In the southern part of the village I came across a manufactured goods store with a Soviet bilingual sign. On the right is written in Finnish: "Teollisuustavaroita". Although almost the entire indigenous population here is Russian, we are still in Karelia, where in Soviet times signs were duplicated in Finnish, and not Karelian (this has been the case since the times of the Karelian-Finnish SSR).

9. Here he is, Sumposad. Among the huts there are five-walls, but not of such a severe type as can be seen in the Arkhangelsk region. Here the houses are usually more elongated in length.

10. The house of the merchant Ivan Shutiev, who owned a store located in it:

This is what the house looked like 100 years ago:

Now half of the house is occupied by a church (it can be seen from the crosses). After taking the picture, we were noticed by a resident of the house - a rather handsome and very talkative grandfather, who, according to him, helps with the housework in this church. He managed to tell us a lot - about how he worked in Moscow in the dashing nineties and almost got into clashes with bandits, then about how he lives here in his old age, and clean air gives strength so much that you don’t even go to the doctor have to walk:
- When you are sick, you should come here, and go over there behind the forest to drink water.
- From the swamp?
- From the swamp! Then you will live long.

In general, it must be said that Sumposad (like Belomorsk) is distinguished by some kind of intelligence of the locals. In addition, a village with such a rich history and traditions is a kind of cultural center of the Belomorsky district (as, for example, in the Babaevsky district in the Vologda region).

11. At the house with the church - a memorial to famous fellow countrymen:

Two people were especially singled out here. Captain Vladimir Voronin (1890-1952) - a native Pomor by origin, one of the Soviet conquerors of the Arctic, who participated in the rescue of the Chelyuskinites. He became especially famous for the fact that in 1932 the icebreaker "Alexander Sibiryakov" passed the Northern Sea Route for the first time in one navigation. The ethnographer Ivan Durov (1894-1938), who studied Pomeranian culture and folklore, was also immortalized here, but fell under repression and was shot in 1938. In one of his essays, he wrote: “The harsh nature of the north hides many such corners, about the life of which much more needs to be said and written. Our Pomorye belongs to one of these corners, stretching in a narrow strip for several hundred miles along the western coast of the White Sea..

12. In the neighborhood - a memorial to the Sumy people who fell in the Great Patriotic War:

13. And on the other side stands the oldest surviving building of the village - the wooden Solovetsky barn, built in 1757. Here was the pier of the Solovetsky Monastery. The monument is unique, but, apparently, there are no funds for restoration, and it is gradually decaying.

14. Around the darkened log walls - the smell of grass wet from the morning rain, and dense thickets of raspberries.

15. Such an inscription was preserved above the entrance to the barn. The Solovetsky Monastery, although located on the island, was at one time one of the main centers of Pomorie, and owned many villages on the Pomeranian coast until the Catherine era.

16. And on the wall of the barn there is such a rare tablet from the time of the Karelian-Finnish SSR (of course, again, with an inscription in Finnish). The only pity is that in the event of the restoration of the barn, it will most likely be removed - this is not yet appreciated in our time.

17. Nearby is the brand new church of St. Elisey Sumy, built in 2006-2013. By the way, this is the only temple in general in honor of this saint.

The place was not chosen by chance. There used to be a graveyard-tee here - the stone Assumption Church (1693), the wooden St. Nicholas Church (1768) and the hipped bell tower. In the utensils of St. Nicholas Church there were many gifts from the Solovetsky archimandrites. The temples, unfortunately, were demolished in the 1930s.

This is what the temple ensemble looked like:

18. Near the church - a memorial sign to the sailors of Sumsky Posad:

As already mentioned, the sea here is the basis of life. A small shipyard operated in Sumposad, local residents sometimes went to fisheries in the Barents Sea and Novaya Zemlya. A nautical school operated here, which gave the country several dozen captains, including the aforementioned Vladimir Voronin.

19. Karelian nature is visible in the landscape of Sumposad. Above the bridge on the Suma is a threshold, rustling with a stormy stream among granite rocks.

20. Karelia!

22. Here, on one of the rocks, under a canopy, there is a karbas - a seaworthy boat, presented to Sumposad in 1870 by Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich (son of Alexander II), who visited the village. About ten years ago, the boat was damaged by the collapse of the canopy. It has not yet been restored, but a new shed has been built.

23. And in general, Sumposad is a solid northern village with a pleasant atmosphere of antiquity.

24. Suddenly, a narrow-gauge railway car near the shore. Until the 1980s, two narrow-gauge railways operated nearby - at the timber industry enterprises in the villages of Virandozero and Malenga, which stand on the railway, even further to the east. Apparently, the car is from there.

At the northern end of the village there used to be a port - one of the centers of trade in Pomorie, including foreign trade. Pomorye had long-standing trade ties with Norway - they traded in salt, furs, but mainly, of course, fish. In the second half of the 19th century, the turnover of fish in Sumposada amounted to thousands of pounds. There was also a passenger pier here - by the beginning of the 20th century, there was a regular steamship service with Arkhangelsk and Solovki, Onega and Kemyu, as well as between villages.

26. Some houses in the village look completely new:

Here we encountered northern hospitality. After taking this picture, a woman in her 60s noticed us and invited us to her house to drink tea and look at the antiques, which she has been collecting for several years. We saw with her old newspapers and documents, and a couple of pieces of furniture (I think a mirror and a bed), and things like an old kettle and a samovar. Basically, the hostess buys all this from local residents (including drunkards), and makes in her house almost a living museum of Pomeranian life. By the way, she is not from here, but from Western Belarus, and, according to her, she is half Polish and Catholic. Here it was quite unexpected.

We stayed in Sumposada for more than three hours and then left this most interesting place, riding bicycles towards Belomorsk. In fact, there are interesting places to the east of Sumposad. For example, the Pomeranian villages of Kolezhma and Nyukhcha. From Nyukhcha, the Osudareva Road began - dragging from the White Sea to Lake Onega, laid in 1702 through the Karelian forests by decree and with the participation of Peter I, when he returned from Arkhangelsk. The already mentioned Soviet settlements (formerly urban settlements) Virandozero and Malenga stand on the railway. Maybe someday I will visit that side, but now we are driving in the direction of the city, and our next goal is the village of Virma, 15 kilometers from Sumposad.

27. The whole road here is like this - a grader primer, with forests and swamps around. And somewhere very close, beyond the forest, is the sea.

28. For all 15 kilometers to Virma - not a single settlement. Directly almost classic primer for Karelia among the forests. Most of all I remember here the road Suoyarvi - Suistamo - Lyaskelya, where I traveled by bus three years ago.

We were lucky with the weather. The day was calm and cloudy, no heat, no rain. On the way several times we pass forest streams with peat water along the bridges. At one of the stops we heard a strange rustling and whistling from above - it turned out that a flock of birds was flying over the forest. Probably, from a bird's eye view, both the road and the sea are perfectly visible. And from the road you won’t understand how close the sea is here.

29. There are many swamps here:

Gradually on the road there were more cars that were driving towards us. It was Friday, and in the afternoon people were heading to the dacha. A couple of times we drove off with a menacing-looking timber truck, and a PAZ with a sign "Belomorsk - Sumposad - Khvoyny" was also driving towards us. And at some point we heard the whistle of an electric locomotive and the rumble of a freight train from the left side.

30. In front of Virma itself, the road comes very close to the parallel railroad. And the freight traffic along it is very busy, the flow of goods to the port of Murmansk, the export of ore from the Kola Peninsula. Almost like a highway in the middle of the Karelian wilderness.

31. But when the next freighter dies down, it becomes quiet again at the small Virma station. Passenger traffic here is limited to the Kem-Malenga electric trains and the Vologda-Murmansk train, which passes here at night.

32. I remember that on the station building (which is on the right) there was a sign "Entrance with fire is prohibited." Probably Prometheus would be upset.

Plans for the construction of a railway along the Pomeranian coast existed even before the revolution. In 1916, after the opening of the Murmansk highway, there was a project for the line Soroka - Sumposad - Onega - Kholmogorskaya station, which would connect it with Arkhangelskaya. As a result, however, the steel track was laid here only in 1941, and by a slightly different route - past Onega, and to the Obozerskaya station. During the war years, it played a role as the only land connection between Murmansk and the mainland (since the Murmansk highway was cut by the Finns).

34. A couple of kilometers after the station, Virma herself is already visible. Again, long huts and barns, and a little further - a slightly mysterious fog. There is the White Sea!

35. Virma is a small village, standing almost by the sea and not even closed off from it by the forest. It got its name from the river of the same name that flows into the sea. At its mouth, in fact, there is an estuary - the sea current enters here, and therefore, at low tide, a viscous greenish silt, called the word "nyasha", is visible along the river banks.

36. Almost every house has its own boat dock. And behind the houses you can see the wooden church of Peter and Paul, to which we will come closer.

37. View upstream:

38. And here, too, there are many good old huts. Virma is also an old village, first mentioned in 1459. And in the 16-17 centuries, here, as in Sumy, there were salt pans.

39. At the entrance to the village - a monument to fellow countrymen:

40. Towering majestically over Virma is the Church of Peter and Paul, built in the middle of the 17th century, one of the masterpieces of wooden architecture in the Russian North. The first church on this site has been known since 1526.

41. The composition of the church in Virma is a five-domed cube (as, for example, at the church in the Kargopol Archangel).

42. They knew how to choose good places for churches. The temple is surrounded by mighty firs and Karelian rocks.

43. And the landscapes around are beautiful. The landscapes throughout Karelia are similar and easily recognizable - approximately the same wooded cliffs can be seen somewhere near Vyborg.

44. Under the feet of moss ...

45. ...and blueberries:

46. ​​And Wyrm looks like this. There are already very few permanent residents in the village, and mostly summer residents are already here - some from Belomorsk, and some even from Murmansk.

47. And from behind the outskirts the sea wind blows, and a foggy suspension hangs in the air.

48. There is already a sea. Virma is located in a bay, which is protected from the open sea by Sumostrov and a number of smaller islands.

50. All around are the same pine trees on granite rocks. And very clean and fresh air, which you want to breathe deeply.

51. Shortly before Sukhoi, the road again goes close to the seashore. There are boulders in the swamp, and sea water is visible in the distance. The fog-shrouded horizon, from which the wind blows, looks mysterious.

In the end, I didn’t photograph much anymore, as attention was less and less distracted by the surrounding views. Of course, a trip on a dirt road on bicycles for such a distance in one day was given to us with great difficulty, and even with stops for rest, we were pretty tired when we arrived at Sukhoi. To our joy, there was an insert of an asphalt road as much as three hundred meters! It was a bridge across the Kuzreka River (in Karelian Kuuzijogi - spruce river), at the mouth of which the village of Dry is located.

53. Dry stands right by the sea, and not along the banks of the river, like Virma. Actually, the name of the village is connected with the location: if the seashore here is mostly swampy, then it is here that almost the only one in many neighborhoods dry place right on the beach. The original name of the village is Dry Navolok or Sukhonavolotskoe. It is mentioned for the first time in 1539 in the "Charter of the Grand Duke Ivan Vasilyevich to the Solovetsky Monastery for a fiefdom in the Spassky churchyard of the Vygozero district." It was also a monastery village.

Local legend says that initially they wanted to rebuild the village on Kuzrek upstream, and they brought an icon there to consecrate the place, but the icon was carried away by the river several times to the seashore, which was then perceived as a divine sign, and the village appeared where it stands now.

54. The wind roared from the sea, and at one of the houses a dog was barking at us, sitting behind the fence.

55. In the center of the village is the Church of the Smolensk Icon of the Mother of God. It was built in 1899, but during the Soviet years, its bell tower and dome were dismantled, and it has been preserved in this form to this day. It was painted white recently, and, in my opinion, in vain.

56. Monument to fellow countrymen soldiers:

57. And here is the sea. We reached Sukhoi already in the evening, when the tide began. A grandmother and her grandson were walking along the shore and watching the sea: "You see, in the morning the tide was low, the water left. And now, in the evening, it has returned again."

Interestingly, there is also a Sukhoe railway station a few kilometers from here. But it is actually not connected with the village in any way, and there is not even an entrance from the highway.

58. Last look at Sukhoe and its sea bay:

The bike ride took us the whole day, and, as already mentioned, we were, to put it mildly, very tired (I still remember the pleasant feeling when you go to bed after such a race). That is why after Sukhoi, I almost didn’t shoot anymore - I more wanted to either continuously pedal in order to get there faster, or sit and relax. I'll show you just a couple more shots.

59. Another road exit close to the sea:

60. And this is the Bolshaya Ketmuksa River just before the mouth. As in Wyrm, the sea current enters here, therefore, with the tide, the silt is no longer visible, and the water in the river is high. And yet - a slightly unusual lilac shade of the cloudy evening sky is noticeable. This is characteristic of the northern latitudes with their brighter sunlight.

On this note, I will complete the story about the Pomeranian coast and its villages. It was Belomorsk with its environs that became for me the final destination of a long journey through the northern regions in the summer of 2016. And the story of this journey has almost come to an end. Next time, I will finally say a little about the way back home.

Sub-ethnos of the Russian people, indigenous people in the White Sea North of Russia. The issue of ethnicity continues to be controversial.

The ethnonym may have come from the name of the western coast of the White Sea from the city of Onega to the city of Kem - the Pomeranian coast. Ethnikon "pomor" probably began to be used from the end of the 16th century. At the end of the 19th century, pomors were the industrialists from the Arkhangelsk, Mezen, Onega, Kem and Kola districts of the Arkhangelsk province, employed in the fishing and fur trade, who went to Murman and northern Norway.

unknown , Public Domain

As the historical successors of the traditional Pomor culture, Pomors are currently called the population living in settlements along the shores of the White Sea and in the lower reaches of the Northern Dvina, Onega, Mezen.

Name etymology

In historical documents from the 16th century, another local term is attested - "pomortsy". It denoted the population living on the Pomeranian coast of the White Sea from the river. Onega to Kem, and busy fishing on Murman, the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula.

Shabunin Nikolai, Public Domain

Over time, villages whose inhabitants were engaged exclusively in sea fishing also appeared on the Summer and Winter coasts of the White Sea.

unknown , Public Domain

From the end of the 17th century, in the Russian North, members of the communities of the so-called Pomor Accord, a trend in the Old Believers that took shape during the split of the Russian Orthodox Church, began to be called Pomortsy. Perhaps, in connection with this circumstance, the new term Pomors has become widespread instead of the old one - Pomeranians, to refer to the same group of Russian old-timers.

unknownwikidata:Q4233718 , Public Domain

Perhaps the origin of the terms "Pomortsy" and "Pomors" is associated with the Murmansk fisheries. Written sources of local origin in the second half of the 18th and 19th centuries testify that Pomors were the inhabitants of the Pomorsky coast from Onega to Kem inclusive, some villages of the Karelian coast and parts of the villages of the Summer and Winter coasts, which were engaged in the risky at that time ocean fishery and animals.

unknown , Public Domain

Fisheries of the Arkhangelsk people

Historically, the fisheries of the population of the Arkhangelsk North included:

• Ocean fisheries for cod, saithe and halibut on Murman - the northern coast of the Kola Peninsula;
• White Sea herring fishing, carried out in the Kandalaksha, Onega, Unskaya and Dvinskaya bays, as well as fishing for saffron cod and flounder along the shores of the White Sea;
• Fishing for salmon, carried out along the rivers flowing into the White Sea and the Northern Ocean, as well as along the sea coast of the White Sea, near the mouth of the rivers flowing into it;
• Lake and river fishing for whitefish, burbot, pike and other freshwater fish species.

Ivan Alekseevich Shergin (1866-1930), the publisher of the journal Vestnik Severa (1866-1930), the author of numerous books of stories and essays about the northern region, described the fishery of the Arkhangelsk people as follows:

Fishing is divided into freshwater and marine (cod) in Murman. The latter is the subject of the otkhozhny fishery of the Pomors of the Kemsky and part of the Onega counties, who annually migrate to Murman. In addition to the aforementioned industrialists of the Pomors, local residents of the Aleksandrovsky district also participate in the Murmansk marine fishery, but their number is not large. So, in 1906, there were 126 vessels with 400 catchers, while in total there were 993 vessels with 3,446 catchers in the fishery. And now, as soon as navigation opens, the steamers of the Murmansk Partnership immediately depart from Arkhangelsk and, having taken the Pomors of the White Sea coast, follow to Murman, where they catch cod, haddock, and halibut during the summer. In mid-August, the ships of the partnership go around the camps on the Murman and, having loaded the fisheries, rush to the Margaritinsky fair.

I. A. Shergin

The Arkhangelsk governor (in 1893-1901) and practical scientist A.P. Engelgardt left the following description of the marine industries on Murman:

From the Arkhangelsk, Onega and Kama districts, up to 3,000 industrialists usually come to Murman annually; most of them leave in early March on foot through Kandalaksha and Raz-Navolok to Kola, from where the steamer of the partnership of the Arkhangelsk-Murmansk Shipping Company, wintering in Ekaterininskaya Harbor, delivers them to camps. … The main fishery in Murman is cod. In addition to cod, halibut, haddock, saithe, catfish, flounder, sea bass and sea burbot are caught in relatively smaller quantities .... Single industrialists catch cod on a bait consisting of 180 sazhen scourgers, at the end of which a hook with bait is attached ;…

Pomors do not like to catch fish with a fishing rod, but they catch it with a longline. A tier is several versts long and consists of a little finger-thick rope, to which thin strings 1.5–2 arshins long are attached, at a distance of one sazhen from each other; hooks are attached to the free end of these strings ... The length of a large tier reaches 4000 fathoms; usually up to 5000 hooks are attached to it. The longline sinks to the seabed and lies in the water for about six hours, after which it is gradually pulled out and the caught fish is removed from the hooks.

A. P. Engelhardt

Already in our time, the sociologist Yu. M. Plyusnin conducted in 1995-2001 a survey of the rural population of the coastal part of the White Sea, the legendary Pomeranian coasts. He identified and described the following fact. There were 13 medium-sized fishing seiners in 5 Pomor fishing collective farms surveyed by him. But no more than 10 collective farmers worked in teams out of almost 400 people in their total number. The rest of the crew was recruited in Estonia and Ukraine:

The reasons for the reluctance to go to sea are called very different, but one circumstance stands behind all of them: against the backdrop of unprofitable animal husbandry and crop production, sea fishing is profitable and allows the collective farm to support all its workers, regardless of their real contribution. This small salary, on which the members of the collective farm live, acts as an assistance, thanks to which they still have enough time to do their own farming (plus hunting, fishing, collecting and surrendering algae, and other time-consuming tasks that are not troublesome and often even pleasant). ) and leisure corresponding to the needs, which consists in regular and prolonged drunkenness (while Prohibition was introduced on the courts) ... A rentier psychology was formed, which at the level of everyday consciousness quickly gained a foothold, found an ideological justification in the current conditions as a situationally valuable mechanism begins to successfully replace the former socio-psychological mechanisms of life support.

Yu. M. Plyusnin

History of study

Currently, there is no single point of view on the concept of "Pomors". There are a number of main approaches that differ from each other:

• The Pomors are an indigenous people of the North, an indigenous people formed from Russian, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian components;
• Pomors are a group of people of a sub-ethnic nature, connected by a similar way of life and type of economic activity;
• Pomors is a regional, local and ethnically neutral name for the Russian and Karelian population living in the Arkhangelsk North, in Karelia, in the Murmansk region and the Nenets Autonomous Okrug;
• Pomors are an ethnographic group of the Russian old-timer population, an indigenous northern people living along the shores of the White Sea;
• Pomors are a Russian sub-ethnos living on the White Sea;

Language and culture of speech

The spoken language of the Pomors is the Pomor dialect of the Russian language. The characteristic features of the Pomeranian dialect are:

• Okane and longitude of vowels in phonetics, characteristic of a part of the Finno-Ugric languages.
• a large number of words inherited from the Old Russian language (its Novgorod dialect).
• the presence of numerous new formations, in particular those related to the natural conditions and economic activities of the Pomors, as well as language borrowings from the Old Baltic, Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian languages ​​in the vocabulary.
• some features in the creation of verb forms, selective use of the aorist.

Territorial groups of Pomors

• Actually Pomors. The population of the Pomor, Summer and part of the Karelian coast of the White Sea. They distinguish themselves from the population of the Kandalaksha Bay (calling them "pyakka") and the Tersky coast (calling them "rockans")
• Pomors of the Kandalaksha Bay. Gubyan "pyakka".
• Pomors of the Tersky coast. Terchans, or as other Pomors call them - "rockans".
• Ust-Tsilems and empty lakes on the Pechora.
• Kaninsky Pomors. A small isolated group of the Kanin Peninsula - 7 people - during the 2002 census called themselves Kanin Pomors.

Religion

The main religion of the Pomors is Orthodoxy of both the new (Russian Orthodox Church) and the old (Old Orthodox Pomor Church) rites.

In 2010, a field expedition of the Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology. N. N. Miklukho-Maclay of the Russian Academy of Sciences investigated the religiosity of modern Pomors.

The village of Shueretskoye is an old Pomeranian village. It was founded over five centuries ago. The first to settle were people from Novgorod, and gradually the banks of the Shuya River were settled by hunters and fishermen. The life of the settlers was connected with the White Sea. Fishing and sea crafts, salting and smoking of fish, shipbuilding and trade are the main occupations of the Pomors. There was an erroneous opinion that the Pomors were not engaged in anything other than fishing and hunting. Let's try to figure out if this is the case.

The northern lands were among those few areas where salt was mined. Written sources that have come down testify that salt production is well established. So the Solovetsky Monastery had about 50 varnits. Salt was obtained by evaporation over a fire in a salt pan - a log shed without windows. In the center of the varnitsa, a quadrangular pit was dug - an oven. Its walls were laid out with stone, the bottom was sprinkled with sand. An iron box filled with brine was hung over the furnace. "Cooking" lasted more than a day. And we also had varnitsa in the village ...

Such an unusual craft as pearl fishing has acquired a wide scope in Pomorie. Pearl shells were mined at the mouth of the Shuya River. Pearls were mined in small quantities, so they brought insignificant income to the inhabitants. Pearl fishing was of a predatory nature, which led to the almost complete disappearance of pearl shells in the river. Warriors were decorated with pearls.

Joinery production existed in the region almost everywhere. Carpentry masters were engaged in fishing in their free time from agricultural work and made kitchen and room furniture for peasant use (tables, stools, chairs, cabinets, chests of drawers, carpenter's tools: chisel, chisel, brace, planer, hacksaw, file).

Cooper is a rare profession. In the old days, secrets were passed down from father to son. Cooperage production mainly served the household needs of the population. Cooperage craftsmen made a wide range of wooden vessels needed in every peasant household: vats, tubs, tubs, pelvises, pails. For the manufacture of cooperage utensils, various types of wood were used: pine, spruce, aspen, alder, birch, and each species was used to manufacture dishes for a specific purpose. From pine they made containers for salting meat and fish, from spruce - for storing berries and mushrooms, from aspen and alder - for storing milk and dairy products. Hoops were made of spruce, willow or bird cherry, beech. Hoops were made from steel. You should not paint the barrel with oil paint, it clogs the pores, promotes decay. And the hoops are painted so that they do not rust. The work was carried out almost exclusively in winter in residential buildings. The sale of products was carried out most often in their own village, less often they were taken to fairs. There was a special kind of cooperage associated with the peculiarities of fishing - the production of "herrings" (small barrels for salting local herring). This craft was practiced.

According to its purpose - the manufacture of products for peasant use, the basket and box trade was adjacent. Every home and every owner needs a basket. Baskets were made from torch, shingles, birch bark, less often from twigs. For the production of shingles, pine was usually used. From tools an ax and a knife. The resulting blanks were placed in a heated oven for softening: and in a day they were perfectly split with a knife into a splinter. On average, a handicraftsman with a boy assistant could make up to four baskets of shingles per day. Baskets made of birch bark were distinguished by great strength and durability.

Birch bark craftsmen usually made a whole range of household items from wicker and solid (cut from stumps of branches) birch bark - bags, boxes, tuesas, salt shakers, bast shoes. Tuesas - birch bark vessels for storing liquid food products - had unique properties. “Insignificant evaporation of the liquid through the pores of the birch bark slightly cooled the contents, the resinous substance in it, and prevented souring.” Therefore, tues was an indispensable companion of the peasant. Birch bark products have been known since ancient times. Handicrafts of such products are one of the most ancient crafts and are primordially Russian craft.

Birch bark was used in construction: boats were sheathed, floats and other fishing accessories were made from it. Tar is still mined from dry distilled birch bark.

Svetlana Bogdanova